Marrickville invited to appear at Local Government Inquiry

Marrickville Council is one of only three Councils invited to appear at the Sydney hearing of the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Local Government on Monday 27 July 2015, alongside Fairfeld and Mosman Councils. The hearing will take place from 9.00am to 5.30pm at NSW Parliament, with Marrickville Council due to appear at 2.15pm. See full hearing schedule HERE.

The NSW Parliamentary Inquiry was established by the upper house and includes Greens NSW Local Government spokesperson David Shoebridge MLC . It has broad terms of reference including to examine the financial stability of local councils, and the costs and benefits of amalgamations, including evidence from other jurisdictions.

Marrickville Greens Councillors have successfully moved motions through Marrickville Council for Council to make a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry, and to provide tools to residents to make their own submissions. The Greens oppose forced amalgamations and want to keep Local Government local. Key reasons why the Greens do not want Marrickville Council to merge can be found HERE.

The Greens are also supporting the community campaign. At this week’s Council meeting a further Greens motion was formally adopted for Council to support the Save Our Councilscoalition, a multi-partisan coalition of Councillors, Mayors and local community groups from across NSW which is fighting for the right of communities to decide what happens to their Councils.

Read the submissions

You can read a copy of Marrickville Council’s submission to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into Local Government HERE.

You can also read the very detailed Marrickville Council submission to IPART, outlining why it does not want to merge into the “super inner west Council” as proposed HERE. Applying IPART’s own (flawed) criteria residents and Council would be worse off under nearly all of the measures. Council’s IPART submission and the Marrickville Council No Forced Amalgamations page link to the detailed independent modelling commissioned by Council (the “Morrison Low” reports) which further details how Council would be worse off.

Public submissions

The Parliamentary Inquiry is due to report on 17 August 2015 – before the report from IPART with its assessment of whether individual local councils are “fit for the future” is made to the NSW Government. The IPART report won’t be released to the public, so Councils won’t be told whether or why they’re being recommended for merger.

It’s too late to make a submission to the Parliamentary Inquiry but residents can send a submission to IPART until 31 July 2015. You can do this through the IPART website – an email or letter is all that’s needed.

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The Marrickville and Petersham-Newtown Greens are the local groups for members of The Greens political party living in the Sydney suburbs of Dulwich Hill, Enmore, Lewisham, Marrickville, Newtown, Petersham, St Peters, Stanmore, Sydenham and Tempe.

All electoral comment on this site authorised by Richard Morrell 19 Eve Street Erskinville NSW